Senator Doubts Forest Service Can Change Alaskan Asks For Study By General Accounting Office

The chairman of a key Senate committee asked government auditors Friday to help determine whether the Forest Service can improve logging operations on its own or needs a hand from Congress.

The request from Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, came in response to Clinton administration officials’ claims they have all the administrative authority they need to effectively manage the national forests.

For that reason, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman told Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, earlier this month they oppose his tentative proposal to legislate changes in forest management laws.

But Murkowski, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said Friday he is skeptical of the administration’s ability to make the necessary changes.

In the past, the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and White House Council on Environmental Quality “have taken an inordinately long period of time” to prepare new management rules, obtain clearance from the White House and formally implement them, Murkowski said.

“What we are after are real reforms that mean something to real people in real time,” he said Friday.

“Administrative changes are taking, if not forever, longer than most people can afford to wait,” he said.

Murkowski asked Congress’ General Accounting Office to provide his committee with information on the agencies’ rule-making process and the average time frames involved.

Craig, chairman of the committee’s forestry subcommittee, has prepared a draft bill titled “Public Land Management Responsibility and Accountability Restoration Act.”

Environmentalists say it would rewrite the National Forest Management Act and National Environmental Policy Act so as to erode protection of fish and wildlife and accelerate logging on federal lands.